Random Uses For Fate
by Zaedah
Summary: In keeping with Fate’s intolerable humor...
1. Chapter 1

_Zaedah thanks you for stopping by to see the latest batch of silly cookies I have baked..._

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**Random Uses For Fate**

In keeping with Fate's intolerable humor, things opted to go wrong in a most indelicate manner.

Somewhere between the moment they'd entered the meeting place and the roof was sent on a fiery flight, Peter arrived at an intimate understanding of his place in the universe; squirming under the boot of a laughing god. Bits of a drop ceiling fell around the fleeing pair, Olivia's feet tangling in the thin framing. He pulled the stumbling woman upright and, once the parking lot was in view, threw them both clear of the careening debris. Above their gasping heads plumes of asbestos-laden smoke rose through what could now be labeled a building-wide skylight.

Light explosives, Olivia muttered while picking dry wall out of her hair.

Thank the snorting deity for that, Peter mumbled as a gash at his elbow painted roses on his sleeve.

The one-floor, low-rent business complex had been tragically plain, rows of cheap desks lining white walls with dollar store wall hangings and the occasional dusty plastic plant in a corner. The décor was not likely improved by the new scorch marks. FBI snitches are apt to pick horrid little places for clandestine meetings and they hadn't been terribly anxious when they'd arrived.

Who knew impending doom rented an office here?

Asphalt, as one might expect, was no friend to the backside that had greeted it. Rising gingerly on shaking legs, Peter reached a hand out to stabilize Olivia but the offer was rejected in her self-sufficient, early feminist way. Still, it was difficult to lecture her on the wonders of gratitude when she'd nearly taken a stapler to the head. Peter had almost lost a limb to a dislodged keyboard, which only bolstered his personal pact to never sink to the apparently deadly depths of office work.

An FBI crew rolled onto the site in no special hurry, looking entirely unimpressed with the mess and proceeded to wander about poking at grounded ceiling tiles. A batch of suits followed, the safety of their fellow agent seemingly second to the losing battle of retaining the shine of their shoes while trampling through industrial residue. The noxious fog was clearing while a female EMT surveyed every scratch and bump, mapping out Peter's skin with a sickening interest. Not that he was traditionally opposed to estrogen-fueled attention but the woman must have put on her morning face with an uncooperative spatula.

Olivia, on the other hand, looked as radiant as one could with an abrasion-covered scowl. She was displeased with minor pawns ruining a good pant suit and woe to the source should her hands ever share a room with his throat. Once the exam was completed with minimal eye contact on his part, Peter's skin stopped crawling. It probably helped that the next person to touch him was a woman who seemed determined to reenter the scene of their near-burial. He let Olivia's firm grip steer his arm, along with the rest of the body, back through the building's smoldering shell. Technicians in balloon-like coveralls were taking samples, photo-documenting and musing over ignition sources. Peter's purpose in all this, as in so many areas of his existence, remained an unfortunate mystery until Olivia's hand, newly unglued from his stained sleeve, brushed his.

Support.

Oh yeah. He'd read the manual on that and, based on page eight, he placed his hand on her lower spine in perfect textbook fashion. Olivia looked skyward into a midday sun that brought brights and shades to what was once a solid gleam of florescent lighting. The unnatural illumination of the indoors lent a deeper tarnish on her face's emerging bruises. It's true; guys dig girls with scars.

Someone's bound to succeed eventually, he thought. And all this government-edition dodging can't be good for a newcomer's health. Peter had long intended to take up jogging but all this running was making exercise rather redundant. More irritating was the confirmation that he was now trapped in the clichéd cop drama where every abandoned building must explode on the seekers of justice. All they needed was a foreboding theme song and intricate title sequence. In truth, Peter wouldn't know justice if it tongued him in an alley.

He just had nothing better to do.

Nothing better than to cart this disheveled woman off to a bar and pray that liquor can drown the ringing in his ears. But Olivia's thoughts were clearly not dwelling on vice. The discovery of a grimy rubber band meant the rebirth of the angry ponytail, a requirement for investigating. Peter watched bodies moving through the rubble, swabbing surfaces and bagging bits with a sudden hurry that suggested the evidence wears running shoes. The place was a swirling vortex of activity, excepting the wandering man perfecting a slo-mo path of the inner perimeter. Apparently, not even a near-death experience can block boredom.

No one sought the consultant's opinion on this spot or that speck, so his reasons for remaining in the blast zone dwindled to nil. In a former life, he sported the virtual badge of an answer man. Now his answer for escaping the hollow site would consist of a feeble mention of babysitting duty. It wasn't a stretch, knowing that the lab could well resemble this office if Astrid couldn't keep Walter nailed down. Both father and son shared the genetic trait of being randomly needed, like bad medicine or public sex. The in-between required only mediocrity; show up, gristle about, depart.

But had he not been randomly present to register the odd beeping near the break room, had he not shoved a pretty girl face first out the door, Olivia would have been here alone… and spectacularly dead. Most women don't come in a flame-resistant model. And with the force of C-4, (the remnants of which were being dragged out of a copy machine) enlightenment blew him over.

It could have been vastly worse, but it hadn't. They'd lived to peel themselves off the pavement and see the wreckage from the outside. Fate and a tall blond had put him in this moment, in this building, in this life. God may well be laughing, but maybe it was more often with him than at him. Unlikely as it may be, the fantasy was encouraging on a day when things had gone so indelicately wrong. After all, being tripped by projectile post-its or having one's throat slit by flying file folders was no way to go. It was conceivable that, as Fate might swear, there was humor to be divined from this day.

Startled agents drew their weapons at the sound of a madman's chuckle behind them. Peter had to cover his mouth and duck.


	2. Chapter 2

_Written with the help of DogDog, our new (and temporary) addition..._

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**Random Uses For Fate**

**Part Two**

In keeping with the jittery nature of Peter's luck, the woman seemed prepared to continue the conversation without him. There was a backdoor, he recalled, and it opened out into a world devoid of words spitting out from clear-glossed lips. With dust and blood still clinging to his heated skin, the genius could summon nothing to contribute to the seething diatribe. Not that the fragranced air could hold anymore verbal weight. Unfortunately, while Olivia carried on a one-sided debate over motive, her four-ton gaze put on tights and pinned him down.

The circus was in town.

And Peter became an unwilling spectator in her three ringed fury, a bruised tiger pacing a figure eight through adjoining rooms. He waited in the underlit background, seeking an exit in the sticky floors and popcorn. Just a few hours ago, he'd been laughing in the face of gun muzzles. Just a few days ago, he'd accepted the weight of God sitting on him because it meant he'd been noticed. Just a few months ago, he'd believed Fate, however cruel, at least had a plan. Instead, the cosmic Ouji board was pointing to letters that formed words that spelled disaster.

Can't stay. Can't leave.

The forsaking of motion was a vow he hadn't made and all of them were clothing him in presumptions that didn't fit. It was stifling, the role they'd assigned him and every day renewed the taste of panic in his mouth. But here he stood among her picture frames and cereal boxes and locked drawers, the sounding post for the pissed. Trains rumbled past, birds happily migrating and the jealousy clawed up his throat where words refused to live.

Soft hands mimed through a frenzied rehash of events as though she'd been the only one to see it. Fingers retold the height of the explosion, the width of the resulting paperwork and the depth of her charbroiled anger. The truth that he'd met the day personally was jailed within his head, fearing that any word spoken would morph into screaming. He could have died today and those who'd have bothered to buy black were frightening scant. The quickened pulse filled his ears, her rough voice coming in muted waves as though the city had joined Atlantis. He had to sit down and the lack of a chair mattered little. Flesh turned to lead as the room turned on its axis and the floor seemed as far away as heaven. But once reached, everything stopped. Except her hands, which were closer now and firmer in form.

He was being shaken.

Blessed Silence, entirely deserving of the capitals, replaced the flood and for a time even Fate hushed. Moments of incapacity were like that, showering the damned with the kisses of angels. The harsh tugging on his shoulders was an easily assuaged distraction. Betrayal came in the guise of help and his vision was slowly blinked into focus. Head trauma, a soothing voice questioned as fingers traced over his scalp. The gentle probing stopped, centered on a tender spot above his left ear. She called his name, the tinny sound banging around in his brain and telling Blessed Silence to take a hike. Response took energy that was being stolen by the effort to stay awake. The chocolate dark of the evening promised an embracing sanctuary but the incessant chant of his name rooted Peter to the now.

Where he didn't want to be.

It didn't take long for the shaking to erupt from within, the touch of her hand borrowed from Antarctica. The sting of Oblivion spitting him out reduced the grown man to a gasping pile of limbs that Olivia leaned over with grating words meant to calm. Impossible because he was still here, on this planet where buildings crumple around the cavalry. Familiar panic, the tang he typically woke to when lacking the balm of a hangover, picked the locks and escaped. Even with eyes squeezed shut he could sense hers digging holes into his pounding skull.

He'd never let anyone see this before.

There are repercussions when the roof blows and pavement becomes a safety net. He wants to tell Olivia this as she murmured that it was okay. He wanted to tell her that okay is only experienced by babies and nuns. He wanted to tell her that her she had the wrong voice, the opposite of her neighbor's dog. A German shepherd shouldn't bark like a Chihuahua and she should have a more feminine voice to match her eyes. Peter heard 'concussion' and a few more things that undoubtedly answered her whys. But the recent resurgence of childhood attacks isn't explained by C-4 and bruising. He could rattle off the formula for the popular explosive with certainty that it didn't contain the ingredient Anxiety. Not even in the small print.

So his forehead rested on arms that rested on knees which were drawn up to shield him from the prying gaze of a woman that would see him as burdensome should she realize that this meltdown wasn't injury-related. When Olivia's hands began to move again, searching for his face, Peter allowed her to steer his head up from its hiding place. It didn't matter anymore what she saw because he couldn't offer her anything when he was scraping the bottom of his reserves.

How much support could he pour from an empty glass?

Her home wore the mask of a tomb, shadows creeping in to swallow his world. I seemed a bit of darkness tore itself from the whole to nibble at his scalp, so much like her fingers that it was almost welcome. The pressure placed at his wound startled him. A kiss. Her lips were there, moving steadily downward from the ear to his cheek and further still. His stubble raked against the softness just before that mouth graced his with a mercy that made him want to weep. He understood what she was giving him.

They'd read the same manual.

And the vampire shadows receded in the light of her purity. Olivia followed the illustrations, leaning back against the wall, taking his hand and gently interrogating. He held the truth in his hand, measured the fullness of it and let it all go. On a floor during the owl's hour, she learned of the first attack, striking a seven year old in the middle of class with the absolute certainty that he wasn't in the right place. The teenager fared no better, prone to bouts of worry that he wasn't supposed to be there. He remembered telling his school counselor, who shared a personality with the common dial tone and the elderly man had stared lasers at Peter until the pool of boyhood shame dripped back to class. It was the reason the adult thirsted for foreign lands; at least he'd have an excuse for the constant sense of wrong.

It came out in a rush missing breath and thought. Like the unplanned conference with asphalt, Olivia looked five notches past surprised. It lived in the far corner of her 'good looks' arsenal but at least it didn't turn him to liquid. And then she whispered that she gets them too. In a voice belaying the firearm on the table, she detailed a panic bred in parenting and nurtured by the bureau. But they'd gotten through fearful childhoods and survived fiery offices and no amount of fringe science could steal the strength of their pairing. She decided that Fate liked them both, putting them together to fill in gaps. It was laughable.

But it was all he had.

It occurred to him, as the floor chilled under them, that he hadn't responded to her two-phase approach of support. And he rectified that by warming the tiles the old fashioned way.


End file.
